


Morose men on rooftops

by Fictropes



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Comfort, Internalized Homophobia, Introspection, M/M, dan is stood on a roof and phil thinks the worse, gay bars, it's two lines with of stuff and then thats it, just want to clarify here so no one reads anything that will upset them!, suicide mention (just to clarify.. what this means)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-04
Updated: 2020-11-04
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:34:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27390517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fictropes/pseuds/Fictropes
Summary: “Dunno, maybe chatting up morose men on roofs is my thing.” He laughs, and it’s a nice noise.
Relationships: Dan Howell/Phil Lester
Comments: 35
Kudos: 104





	Morose men on rooftops

**Author's Note:**

> hi! trying out a new introspective style for a couple fics, regular unhinged style will return loool

Admittedly he’s standing very close to the edge when it happens, but he still doesn’t think it calls for the utter panic— the chaos of whoever it is shouting out to him.

“Don’t! Oh my god! Wait—“ Whoever it is is wheezing, struggling to get out their next plea for him to not do— whatever.

“I’m not.” Dan takes a step back from the edge, just to prove a point.“You can stop choking now, sort of sounds like you’re the one who is going to need the help.”

“Christ.” He’s doubled over, if the shadow on the wall is anything to go by. Dan doesn’t want to turn around, doesn’t want to invite conversation tonight. He’d come up here for some peace and quiet, to get away from the stifling heat and too many bodies.

It was an idea, a _what if._

What if you go to a gay bar and feel fine? What if you go to a gay bar and the urge to crawl out of your skin isn’t there? What if uni really is your place to be you?

Dan doesn’t know yet, been in two separate minds all night. Part of him wants the excitement of just— _being._ He wants to throw caution to the wind, wants to grind up against strangers and not have it mean anything—wants to be seen with another guy and it be.. nothing. 

He can’t, though.Too many people, too many eyes. The possibility of someone hating him for just existing is still there, still looming and it means he can’t admit to it— can’t speak the _word_ out loud, can’t go through with the actions that would allude to his own mind and its desires.

It was supposed to be _different._ University was supposed to be Dan’s moment in the fucking sun, but here he is stood beneath a dark sky on the rooftop of a bar he can’t face being in.

Something cuts through his internal monologue of sorrow, a voice that’s much closer than it had been before. “You’re not?”

“No, I’m not.” Dan answers, because he really isn’t. It’s too grand a thing, he thinks. “It’s sort of my thing, being morose on rooftops. Wasn’t expecting anyone to follow me up.” 

“I didn’t follow you up.” 

“No? Then why are you here?”

“Dunno, maybe chatting up morose men on roofs is my thing.” He laughs, and it’s a nice noise. Something warm about it, something that doesn’t make Dan feel the urge to bolt back down the stairs. 

But it still does something odd— still sends a buzz through his veins that he doesn’t know is good or bad. His brain is telling him the same thing in two different ways, you could go home with him— _oh, god, you could go home with him._

And if he were braver he might, he might turn around and flirt— but he isn’t. Tonight he’s scared shitless, tonight he’s dipping his toe into the water of the biggest ocean he thinks he’ll ever see. To swim out too far and lose sight of the shore is terrifying.

“I mean— god, sorry. That was awful, I didn’t come up here to corner you. Just ran away cos I felt like a flopping fish being kicked around the dance floor.” He’s rambling now, all nervous because Dan’s stood like a silent weirdo— staring up at the moon like it can solve all his problems.

Something about it makes Dan laugh, crack a smile for the first time in about an hour. “What sort of fish?”

  
  
“Oh.” He squeaks, seemingly caught off guard by the follow up— didn’t mean it literal, but here Dan is making it so. “The like slimy ones.”

“They’re all slimy.” Dan points out, but his dimples are still on show and his brain has stopped buzzing quite as loudly. 

“No! Not like this one— god… blobfish! I feel like a blobfish.” He sounds a bit too proud of himself for remembering it, honestly— charming in a way Dan doesn’t understand.

“I’m sort of scared to look at you now, swear I looked at those things and had a nightmare. Woke up in a cold sweat with one just being ominous at the bottom of my bed.” He does turn though, and part of him wishes he hadn’t.

He’s beautiful in a way that Dan doesn’t know if he’s allowed to appreciate yet. 

“Well?”

“You don’t look like a blobfish,” Dan confirms, and the way his face lights up is— it’s overwhelming. It’s as though Dan had just granted him three wishes, offered up immortality— done more than just been himself.

“Well, neither do you.” And the smile dies down, but Dan swears the sky is darker now because all the light is in this man’s eyes. “Phil, by the way. Don’t ever want to be referred to as weird fish dude in anyones brain.”

“Too late, that’s forever seared in my mind. Whenever I see a fish i’ll think of you.” 

“Even a dead fish being put in a fryer? Like.. in batter, sort of like you’d see in a chippy— or whatever. Or what about a dead fish on the counter in a supermarket, it’s beady little eye staring at you?”

And Dan thinks he’s a bit fascinated, that he could stand here for the rest of his life and listen to Phil talk— present up a study at the end, win a noble prize for his work. 

“No, I promise just alive fish.” Dan cracks his knuckles, suddenly all his bones feel too big to be contained inside his body— heart feels too big to be inside his chest. He just feels allwrong, but right at the same time. Like he _should_ be stood here, with a man wearing too much rainbow and talking about— whatever he wants. 

It’s an all out war between what he knows and what he _wants_ to know, who he is and who he _wants_ to be. For once he thinks he might let the wants win, just for now— on this secluded rooftop away from everyone else but Phil. 

Phil—who his mind has decided is safe. 

So he sinks down to the floor, pats the empty space beside him and isn’t even surprised when someone with all the grace of an elephant appears right beside him.

“Did that hurt?” Dan laughs, an actual thud echoing around in the air. 

“Would you believe me if I said no?” Phil asks, but he’s desperately rubbing at his own backside in hopes it’ll alleviate some of the pain.

“Absolutely.” And it’s worth the smile he gets. 

“They started with the foam downstairs, thought i’d better run away before I slip and die.” Phil rakes a hand through his own hair and Dan wonders if it’s as soft as it looks, has this brief fantasy about sitting on a sofa with Phil sprawled across his lap. Completely content to just be, not thinking twice about touching— running his own hand through black hair and it notmeaning anything more than just that. Than just touching someone you like. 

But he’s fantasising, and that probably isn’t fair— not when Phil is sat right beside him, practically a stranger. He’s desperate tonight though, to latch onto anything that makes him feel better about who he is, and for some reason tonight it’s Phil. Might be because he’s the one who happens to be there, might be because he radiates all the warmth Dan had needed growing up. 

“Are you gay?” Dan blurts, because he can’t help it— needs to know that he’s not secretly being hated. 

“Yeah.” Phil answers, simple as that. Simple as a one syllable word.

“Oh.”

“Are you?”

He was expecting it, but it still catches him off guard. 

  
  
“I— I don’t know, maybe. Fuck.” He buries his face in-between his knees, anything to hide the onslaught of emotions that seem to show up on his face without his permission. 

But that’s still more than anything he’s said before, it’s half an answer rather than no answer at all. 

“That’s ok, to not know.” Phil’s quieter now, but not in that horrible way Dan can’t stand— not in a way that’s trying to calm him. More in a way that sounds understanding, more in a way that makes Dan _hope._

“I think I do know.” Dan whispers, speaks to the ground because Phil’s face just seems like to much of a— a thing. It’s the answer, the answer lies it knowing he’s attracted to the guy sat beside him and if he looks up he’s going to have to confront that. “I just don’t know if I want to know.”

“That’s ok, too.”

“Is it?” It comes out too sharp—makes himself flinch. “Sorry, shit.” He looks up now, just because he needs Phil to know— know that he’s ok with Phil. 

Other people aren’t the problem, just himself— his own brain and what it tells him.

“It’s fine.” Phil says, softly— and Dan really thinks he means it. “I don’t think you hate me.” So he does get it, at least a little. Dan wants to quiz him, ask how he got to this point of answering _yeah_ without hesitation. “I think hating yourself for it is.. it’s a different thing all together, isn’t it? And I used to look at people together, people on tv shows, and think I don’t hate them so why do I hate me?”

“Oh.” Dan wiggles closer, he brushes their pinkies together because they’re alone and he can at least have this. “I’m working on it, i’m really trying to work on it. I came here tonight to work on it, yet here I am as far away as I can be without leaving all together.”

“You don’t have to work on it in public, you don’t have to prove anything to anyone. I think you sat here telling me this is enough. It’s more than enough, it’s brave. One person is still a lot of people, actually.” Phil turns his hand over, it’s an invitation that tonight Dan will greedily take. Because working on himself on an empty roof top is enough for right now. 

Phil’s hands are smaller than his, but they still slot together like they were made to. And Dan thinks if they were made to then it can’t be bad, can it? It can’t be wrong. Can’t be anything but right when it feels so nice, when it makes Dan feel more than anything else ever has. 

“Warm.”

“Me?” Dan laughs, squeezes just to confirm this is actually happening— that he’s not drunk and dreaming it all up. “I’m like a goddamn fucking radiator, I swear to god.”

  
  
“It’s nice, having a you would essentially be saving money on my heating. I’ll make a saving list for like, facebook, _hey fellow poor students if you’re struggling this winter get yourself a Dan_.” Phil puts on a stupid voice, and it makes something settle inside of Dan— and he’s not all the way there yet, of course not, but he’s gotten what he wanted out of tonight. Even if it was in an entirely different way to what he had expected.

Even if it’s sat on a roof with one man he hadn’t known half an hour ago. 

And Dan thinks that maybe there are people who can make swimming a little further out less terrifying, thinks one of them is sat right beside him telling him stupid things just to make him laugh. 

**Author's Note:**

> [if you wanna reblog on tumblr! I always appreciate it :)](https://fictropes.tumblr.com/post/633892665453330432/morose-men-on-rooftopscomplete-1927-11dunno)
> 
> as alwyas lemme know what you think! And btw i have given up on my break cos uk is back in lockdown and I AM TOO BORED!


End file.
